Thursday, May 29, 2014

Lesson's gallor!

Hey family and friends!!

This past week was really wonderful!! And the work is starting to pick up in this area and I couldn’t be more excited. It just testifies to me that when things get rough, by only pressing forward with faith and diligence do things get better :)

SO!

Monday- Pday was awesome! But that night our appointment with the 3 sisters got cancelled, which was a bummer. Their mom is skeptical of us, and the church, so it has been really hard for us to have lessons with them and teach them. They have been coming to mutual, which is awesome, and sometimes their mom lets them come to church on Sunday's. It just depends on what is going on. But we are hoping that some members can go over there and talk to her and just explain what we (the missionaries) do. And hopefully that will help. But as of right now, we can’t step on toes, so it comes down to a waiting game.

Tuesday- We had to go to Mojave to get some things taken care of, and then we came back and did our studies. I think I mentioned in one of my last emails that I have been studying Christ like attributes and really trying to develop them and I studies diligence and really began to understand what diligence is and how to apply it better in my missionary work. We then later had a lesson with a new investigator named Patrick. He is a 21-year-old single boy, who lives with his grandma and takes care of her. And he loved what we taught him. He was just soaking it all up! He is an Eagle Scout and really into scouting and he wanted to know how religion could be included in boy scouts, so that is how he got introduced to the church. But we are really excited to continue to teach him. We later dropped some cupcakes off at a couple investigators homes.

Wednesday- After our studies, we did a lot of finding and knocked on some doors. And the Sunday before Hermana Dodge and I fasted for a few things, and one of the things was to find a Spanish family that we could start teaching. So while we were contacting referrals from the ward we decided to walk down the street and knock doors, and this one house had dogs in the front yard and a little girl outside and we heard Spanish, so of course we walked up to that house. We got to talk to the dad and he told us he was busy at the time, but to come back!! Whoo hoo!! It was so cool. We then kept walking and this lady was leaving her house and she rolled down the window and asked us if we were Mormon, and we said yes and then she rolled up her window and drove off…haha. But we are definitely going back to that house! We then had our lesson with Jennifer. This time we were not sweating to death, thank heavens haha. We taught her the plan of salvation, and she really loved and agreed with what we were teaching. I have really come to love teaching her, because she is so open to learning more and she had loved reading the Book of Mormon so far, and to have an investigator this excited about all of this. It makes me so happy!

Thursday- We went down to Lancaster for our interviews with President and Sister Wilson, which went really well. But for Sister Wilson's interview we had to knock on her door and introduce ourselves and use the First Vision, and I was so nervous for it, for one, I was by myself so I didn’t have my companion by me, and second, I was just nervous cause I didn’t want to mess up. But I took a deep breath and she opened the door and I just began. The spirit took over and I was calm and I didn’t stumble over words or anything. To be honest I don’t remember what I said besides reciting Joseph Smith's First Vision. But Sister Wilson told me that I did a wonderful job and that I really had power when I spoke and when I recited the First Vision. And that was such a compliment for me, considering I get so nervous and shy about those things. And my interview with President Wilson went well too. We talked about having faith to find, teach, and baptize. And I told him how I am reading to Book of Mormon with a question in mind and studying Christ like attributes and really seeking the scriptures and the Lord to give me strength and trust. And he thought that was wonderful and that I will find it. It was so nice to get in touch with them again. After that we came home and did our weekly planning, and then had an appointment with Cristina Romero. After that we ran over to the Water's and Tommy told us that he was getting really frustrated about waiting for someone to tell him it was okay to get baptized, and that he was probably going to start looking for another church, and when he said this, my heart just sank. But we talked for a while and told him that we were going to call our mission President and see what he had to say. So we left feeling a little hopeless, but we knew that desire was still there in Tommy. After dinner we came home and continued our weekly planning.

Friday- As we are pulling up into the church parking lot, President called us and we talked to him for about 10 min about Tommy and his situation and lets just say the result of that phone call is-- TOMMY AND BECCA ARE CLEARED FOR BAPTISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!How exciting is that! After we got off the phone with President, we screamed at the top of our lungs!!!! So we then had our Zone Training Meeting and that was good. We talked about teaching better and asking more inspired questions, and knowing when it was right to drop an investigator. After, we ate lunch and then headed over to Lorraine's, but she left us a note telling us that she had to go to work. So then we headed back home and did our personal study and comp study. We then had dinner with a potential investigator and his wife and that went well. He likes to figure out everything logically and by facts, and there comes a point when you can’t use facts, you have to use faith, and so we taught a little bit about faith and how knowing that this church is true and that Joseph Smith is a real prophet, that all the doctrine in the middle is correct and true. So we are hopefully having dinner again with them and a family in our ward next week. After dinner we ran over to the Water's to break the news to them and they were so excited. Tommy was trying real hard not to show how excited he was, but truthfully you could see it!

Saturday- We had the women's expo that was help in Boron. We had a booth for the Relief Society showing what we are and the things that we do and it was way fun! There were a lot of other booths with purses, make up, food, tazers and pepper spray. And we had quite a few people come by and look at our table and ask a few questions. We then came home and ate a small lunch and then we headed over to our dinner appointment, which was also with potential investigators and that went really well. We had the Irish's from our ward, and then friends of the Sousa's (the potential investigators) from the ward up in Tehachapi. And we also taught about faith and what it is and how to grow it and the blessings that come from faith. It was an awesome dinner and we are hoping that that sparked something.

Sunday- Church was wonderful and our investigator Jennifer came to church!!!!!!! Which was so awesome and she loved it. So we are hoping she will come every week! After church we went over to the Martz’s house where we got to Skype our families. And then we had dinner with them and more of their family and then later after dinner we finished our weekly planning since we were so busy every other day to finish it.

(These photos were from Skyping family...haha...don't worry, they were actually really happy to see me, just when I took the photo none of them were smiling! )

SOOO Skype :) It was FANTASTIC! I loved being able to actually see my family’s faces and hear their voices and talk to them and tell them how everything is going. It was weird at first to see all of them, but it felt nice and comforting talk to them. I miss them greatly and love them so much! And I got to talk on the phone with Paige and Chris for a little bit, which was also awesome since they weren’t there to Skype.

Overall this week was good. Busy and exhausting. But I know that when I am exhausted at the end of the night that means I did good work, and that I did what I am called to do.

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Hermana Aase

I will be serving my mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the California Bakersfield Mission from January 2014 - July 2015. I'm 20 years old, and I attend BYU-Idaho. I'm so excited to start this new adventure in my life, and I'm grateful for this opportunity to serve the people of Bakersfield.